We are not satisfied with real life; we want to live some imaginary life in the eyes of other people and to seem different from what we actually are.

As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.

Nothing fortifies scepticism more than that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong.

It is natural for the mind to believe and for the will to love; so that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves to false.

Kind words do not cost much. They never blister the tongue or lips. They make other people good-natured. They also produce their own image on men's souls, and a beautiful image it is.

All sorrow has its root in man's inability to sit quiet in a room by himself.

There are three means of believing--by inspiration, by reason, and by custom. Christianity, which is the only rational institution, does yet admit none for its sons who do not believe by inspiration. Nor does it injure reason or custom, or debar them of their proper force; on the contrary, it directs us to open our minds by the proofs of the former, and to confirm our minds by the authority of the latter.